The cheapest trade website that doesn't look cheap
Every low-cost route to a trade website, ranked on what it really costs over two years, and where to spend the little money you do have.
You can put a trade website online for nothing this afternoon, and most that do look it. The honest figure to fix in your head is from £50/month: that's a done-for-you hand-coded one-pager with hosting, edits and upkeep all included, and it lands in the same monthly territory as a mid Squarespace plan you'd still have to build and run yourself. "Cheap" and "looks cheap" are two different problems, and they're not solved by spending more. They're solved by spending the small budget on the three or four things customers actually judge you on, and skipping everything else.
This runs through the low-cost routes in order, what each really costs once you count two years, and, the part most guides skip, exactly what to keep and what to cut so a budget site still reads as a proper business and not a weekend project.
The cheapest way to get a trade website that still looks professional is a done-for-you hand-coded one-pager from £50/month, or a paid builder plan at £10 to £25/month if you'll build it yourself. A truly free builder tier saves money but adds the platform's branding and a subdomain, which reads as amateur. The single cheapest upgrade that matters most is your own domain, at roughly £10 to £15 a year.
The cheapest ways to get a trade website, ranked
The low-cost routes in 2026 are, from cheapest first: a free builder tier (£0, but branded), a paid builder subscription (£120 to £300 a year), a budget freelancer (£300 to £1,500 once), and a done-for-you hand-coded one-pager (from £50/month, all-in), and the order changes once you count two years.
Free builder tiers (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)
Every big builder has a free tier, and on paper it's unbeatable: £0. The catch is what "free" puts on your site, the platform's own branding, adverts, and a subdomain like yourname.wixsite.com instead of a real address. To a customer comparing two trades, that's the tell that you didn't take it seriously. Free is only sensible as a throwaway test, never as the site people actually judge you on.
Paid builder subscriptions
Move to a paid plan and you drop the branding and get your own domain. Wix and Squarespace paid tiers run from roughly £10 to £25 a month, as published on their pricing pages. That buys a credible-enough DIY site, but it's a meter that never stops, and you're building and maintaining it on your own time.
Budget freelancer or hand-coded
A freelancer might do a simple page for £300 to £1,500, with quality as variable as the price. A done-for-you hand-coded one-pager is from £50/month, built and looked after for you, with hosting and edits included. For a single page that needs to look right, load fast and keep ranking, that managed route is usually the best value of the lot. The full route-by-route sum is on the tradesman website cost page.
What "cheap" actually costs over two years
Over 24 months a paid builder costs £240 to £600 in subscription you pay while doing all the work yourself; a done-for-you hand-coded plan is from £50/month with the build, hosting, SSL and unlimited edits all included, so there's nothing else to buy and nothing left to maintain.
DIY subscription vs done for you
A £15/month builder plan looks cheaper than £50/month. The catch is what you actually get for it: a site you build and maintain yourself, in your own evenings, on a template thousands of others use. The done-for-you plan is a little more a month, but the build, hosting, SSL and unlimited edits are all handled, and it's kept fast and ranking so it earns its keep rather than just sitting there.
| Route | Day one | Two-year total | Done for you? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free builder tier | £0 | £0 (branded, weak) | No |
| Paid builder | £0 | £240 to £600 | No |
| Budget freelancer | £300 to £1,500 | £420 to £1,700 | Build only |
| Done-for-you one-pager | £0 | £50/month all-in | Yes |
The cost you can't see: your own time
DIY routes hide their biggest cost. If your day rate is £200 to £350, a weekend building the site plus evenings maintaining it is real money. Counting that, "free" and "cheap" builders are often the dearest option of all.
What to keep and what to safely skip
To stay cheap without looking cheap, keep your own domain, three to five real job photos, genuine reviews, your accreditation number and a clear phone number, and skip the blog, booking systems, live chat and any page that exists only to look busy.
The five things to always keep
- Your own domain, about £10 to £15 a year, the cheapest upgrade with the biggest effect.
- Real photos of real jobs, three to five beats fifty stock images.
- Genuine reviews, a handful of real ones, named, beat a wall of anonymous five stars.
- Your accreditation, Gas Safe, NICEIC, NAPIT or your trade body, stated plainly.
- A clear phone number, visible without scrolling, tap-to-call on mobile.
What you can drop without losing a single enquiry
Skip the blog you'll never write, the booking calendar nobody uses, live chat you can't man, animated intros, and every page past what you actually offer. A single tight page with the five things above out-performs a bloated five-page site. For the full list of what earns its place, see what a tradesman website should include.
The mistakes that make a cheap site look cheap
A budget site reads as amateur for predictable reasons, a free subdomain, stock photos of other people's work, no real reviews, and a template thousands of others use, and every one of them is avoidable on the same small budget.
The free-subdomain giveaway
Nothing says "didn't bother" like mybusiness.wixsite.com in the address bar. A real domain costs less than a tank of diesel a year and fixes it instantly. It's the first thing to spend money on, before anything else.
Stock photos and empty trust
Generic stock images of strangers in clean overalls fool no one and quietly say you've nothing of your own to show. Four photos off your own phone, of jobs you actually did, beat them every time. Same with reviews, a few real, named ones carry more weight than a row of anonymous stars.
The template tell
A stock builder template shared by thousands of businesses is recognisable to a lot of customers. You don't need an expensive site to avoid it, you need one built around your trade rather than dropped into a layout meant for a café. If you're weighing the platforms themselves, the best way to build a tradesman website breaks each down.
The cheapest route that still looks the part
For a working trade on a budget, the best-value option is a done-for-you hand-coded one-pager on your own domain, built to look like a real business rather than a free template, with the hosting, upkeep and edits all handled so it keeps working.
The bottom line on going cheap
Cheap is fine. Cheap-looking isn't. The trick isn't spending more, it's putting the small budget into a real domain, real photos, real reviews and your accreditation, and cutting everything that only exists to look busy. Do that and a £50/month site reads as a proper business; skip it and a £2,000 one still won't.
See it free before you spend anything
I'll build you a free mockup of your actual business first, your trade, your area, your photos, so you can see the cheap-but-credible version before paying a penny. A one-pager is £50/month, a full site £100/month, with hosting, SSL and unlimited edits included on every plan and zero setup fee. Apply at sitework.uk/#apply.